Tis But a Scratch
by inkheart9459
Summary: After Emma finds herself on the wrong end of a gang attack she's stuck on bed for a week with Regina taking care of her. Emma is sure she's going to go insane over all of Regina's fussing over her. But when Emma wakes up after a nap and hears strange noises from downstairs, maybe she isn't the only one who needs taken care of after the attack.


This is my contribution to Swan Queen Week Summer 2014 Day 5 Caregiving. So I hope you guys enjoy and review if so inclined.

* * *

"You're such an idiot," Regina said, moving around the room, grabbing various things with a scowl on her face.

"We've been over this a dozen times in the last week, Regina. I'm not an idiot." Emma rolled her eyes and sat back in the bed, sinking into the billion and a half pillows that Regina thought she needed.

"Then why are you lying in bed with three broken ribs, a broken arm, and a broken leg?"

"My leg is fractured, Regina."

"Like it matters."

"Considering that distinction got me a walking cast instead of one of those plaster monstrosities I'm pretty damn sure it matters."

"That doesn't change that you're still on bed rest for the next few days." She bustled about for a few seconds. "Or the fact that you're an idiot."

"How am I an idiot for doing my job?"

"Because you got hurt."

"There was a group of them!" Emma exclaimed frustrated. "Things like this are going to happen every now and again now that Storybrooke is actually on a map."

"Small towns are not supposed to have gang activity."

"So says the TV, but this is real life, Regina. Or at least as real as it gets when we live in a town of fairytale characters. She says to a fairytale character," Emma mumbled the last part under her breath. She sighed loudly. "We're a port town, Regina, relatively secluded, the Feds don't even know we exist. It's the perfect place to bring stuff in. But now that I've scared at least that group of them off and arrested a few of their buddies after shooting them we should be good for a while until some guy gets the smart idea to try to come here again."

Regina whipped around. "Don't make it sound so casual, Emma."

Emma just shrugged. "What? This is what cops in bigger cities deal with every day. Hell, as a bail bonds person I dealt with the violence aspect of it, if not the gang part of it."

"I don't care that this is every day for other people. I care that I walked into that hospital and it looked like you were ten seconds away from death." Regina took a deep breath to get control of herself.

Emma's eyes softened as she looked at her wife. "I'm sorry, Regina. I really did try to be careful. I keep telling you that, but I don't think you're hearing it."

Regina pulled herself up straight once again. "I'm hearing it quite well; I'm just having a hard time believing it."

Emma felt like banging her head off the multitude of pillows behind her, but that was probably a bad idea considering she was still recovering from a concussion on top of everything else. She was going to be lucky if Regina ever let her go back to work. She probably would be buried in too much paperwork to ever see the light of day again. The thought almost had her damning the consequences of banging her head and doing it anyway.

"Call me if you need anything," Regina said after setting out literally everything Emma could ever need. "I'll be in the study doing paperwork."

Emma nodded. "Okay."

Regina walked out of the room and Emma dug out her laptop. Netflix was totally going to be her friend for the next week. It was totally fine. She had a shit ton of TV to catch up on. Though Regina would probably tell her binge watching an entire season of Orphan Black was going to liquefy her brain more than the concussion had. She'd deal with those consequences.

She sat back and clicked play. Emma wished she had popcorn. All good binge TV sessions had popcorn. But she almost immediately forgot about her popcorn needs as the events of the first episode unfolded before her. Holy fuck, was this TV show even real?

She'd blown through three episodes by the time Regina appeared with a tray with a couple sandwiches and a bowl of grapes. Emma snatched the bowl and started popping the fruit into her mouth. She smiled up at Regina, a little bit of grape juice trickling down her chin.

Regina rolled her eyes affectionately. "Child."

"Yeah, well, I've been called worse." She glanced back at the screen after a loud noise blasted through the speakers. "Seriously, Regina, you have to watch this show with me sometime. It's such a fucking good show."

"Yes, because I have so much time to devote to mindless drivel."

"It's not mindless drivel. There are clones, Clones! And they're all played by one person. I have no freaking clue how she does it but they all are completely different people. It's something that even you can appreciate, your majesty."

Regina let out a breath. "Perhaps another time when there isn't so much paperwork to get through. Someone has to acquire the money to repair the docks where they were shot through with bullet holes."

Emma pouted, sticking out her lip and giving her best puppy dog eyes. "But you have to take a break sometime."

"Yes, but that time isn't today." She walked over and kissed Emma on the forehead.

Emma leaned into the touch for a few seconds before the other woman pulled away. She always marveled at just how_ safe_ she felt in the other woman's arms.

"Fine, fine, but you're not getting out of this. I don't care if I have to lock us in here one day to get you to sit down and watch it with me, it's happening."

Regina rolled her eyes again. "Very well, dear. As I said before, call if you need anything."

"Yeah, ok, thanks for the food." She shot one last smile at Regina before she disappeared.

She pulled the tray towards her and put her lap top off towards the side. No matter how hurt she was, if she got crumbs in their bed she was a dead woman when Regina found out. Better to just eat over the tray and save herself an almost certain death. She rewound the show to the point she was at when Regina had come it and picked up her sandwich, munching away happily as the show slowly blew her mind.

As she finished her food and the episode ended her ribs really started to ache. She glanced over at the bottle of pain killers. She'd taken one when she'd gotten up about four hours before, which meant it was kosher to take another one according to the directions on the bottle, but she should probably hold out for a little while longer. Vicodin wasn't something to fuck around with unless she really, really needed it. She'd seen enough junkies when she was younger to be wary of any narcotics.

She started another episode of Orphan Black trying to distract herself, but about halfway through she knew holding out probably wasn't the best idea. Emma finished the episode, but she was pretty sure that she was going to need to rewatch it because of how distracted she was. She was reaching for the pill bottle just as Regina walked in again.

Regina immediately saw where her hand was and rushed over. "Are you in pain? Is there anything I can get you? Do you need more pillows? Less light? Does your head hurt?"

Emma grabbed Regina's hands. "Calm down. My ribs hurt, yeah, but that's sort of expected since they're broken. The arm, however, isn't really hurting that badly right now, so I'll take what I can get."

"Do you need your wrappings redone?"

"Nah, they're good. I haven't exactly moved much to loosen them, you know?" She looked up at Regina who had gone about three shades paler since she'd entered the room. She reached up to cup the other woman's face. "Regina, I'm fine, or as good as I'm supposed to be at this point. Nothing is going to go horribly wrong. I'm not going to break because you didn't fluff my pillows enough."

Regina huffed and pulled away. "Yes, well, I just want to make sure everything is fine so you can heal as fast as possible."

"I know, babe."

Regina glared at her. "You may be in a cast and have broken ribs, but that still doesn't give you leave to use insipid pet names."

Emma smiled at her. "And there's the Regina I know and love."

She scowled and shook her head. "You're sure you don't need anything?"

"I'm good. I'm just going to take a pill and that should dull the pain enough for it to be tolerable again. It may knock me out for a couple hours now that I've been up for a little while." Emma shrugged, just barely moving her shoulders to mind her ribs.

"Alright, if you need anything—"

"I know, I'll call you, but I swear, I'll be fine."

Regina looked at her for a long moment before nodding slipping into their bathroom.

Emma took the glass of water that Regina had left there earlier and popped a pill, swallowing easily. Now that Regina wasn't in the room she winced slightly. Damn, ribs were a bitch of an injury. Breathing hurt, moving pretty much everything hurt, and it wasn't like you could really set broken ribs like other bones. Ugh, maybe the next set of gangbangers could maybe avoid her ribs, that'd be cool.

Fifteen minutes later she felt a little drowsy. It was the middle of the day, she really had no reason to sleep other than drug induced drowsiness, but sleeping did speed healing. Emma yawned and set about turning her mound of pillows into a nest of sorts. She hated this whole sleeping on her back thing. She liked sleeping on her side or stomach, but of course that wasn't an option. This many pillows, though, pretty much made up for a lot of it. She burrowed under the covers and found the best position possible for her various injuries. A few minutes later she was asleep, drooling into her pillow.

* * *

When she woke up the sun had just set, leaving the room in a state of murky twilight. Emma blinked a few times, eyes gritty. Damn, she really hated how she felt after waking up from a drug induced sleep. She grabbed the water on her nightstand and chugged all of it. She blinked a few more times. That felt a little better.

She pulled herself upright gently, trying not to wince too much. And now that she was sitting up she really had to pee. Like she wasn't sure how she'd had slept through this, had to pee. She looked down at the walking cast by the side of the bed. She wasn't really used to it and had a bitch of a time yesterday walking around after they'd released her in the evening. Regina had been there to catch her every time she'd stumbled. That was probably a good idea this time even though the bathroom was like two feet away. She could always just walk without it. But she wasn't supposed to do that for a few days, even at home.

She huffed. She'd just have to call Regina. She debated whether to actually call the woman or whether to yell. She settled for a text message.

**Hey, can you come up here for a minute?** She sent. She listened for a few minutes but heard absolutely nothing. It was like no one was home, but she knew that was the case. Regina wouldn't fucking leave her side at the hospital. She barely left Emma in bed alone now that she was home. There was no way she left the house.

**Regina, earth to planet paperwork. Seriously nothing you can be doing can be that interesting. I'm much more entertaining.**

Another few minutes passed and nothing. So she called Regina. But the call went to voice mail. She hung up and Regina's crisp voice telling her to leave a message. She huffed. What in the world was the other woman doing?

"Regina!" she yelled. No creaking of floorboard. "Hey, Regina!" Nada.

She sighed. She was just going to have to do it herself. And after she peed she was totally going to see whatever the woman was up to. She must have fallen down the well or something to miss everything.

Emma quickly strapped on her boot and managed to wobble her way over to the bathroom without incident. When she emerged she made her way to the hall, trailing her good arm against the wall to make sure she could catch herself easily if she tripped herself up. She seemed to be getting a little better in the stupid thing because she only tripped twice.

But then she was at the top of the stairs and she wasn't so confident that she could get down them without killing herself. She bit her lip.

"Regina?" she called. She heard a few very muffled sounds, but couldn't quite pick them out.

Her protective streak overrode her self-preservation instincts. Regina wasn't responding. She could be in trouble, something could be wrong. God, she didn't even want to imagine what could go wrong.

So she made her way down the stairs very carefully, keeping every movement controlled and steady. When she reached the bottom she let out a big breath and let her body relax slightly. Ok, now she could focus on finding Regina.

The noises were slightly louder down here. She twisted her head around until she was sure what direction they were coming from and walked that way. She knew she was heading for Regina's study, which was where the woman said she would be, but if she was there then why hadn't she been responding to Emma. Something had to be wrong. She tried to hurry, but there was only so much she could do in her injured state. Fucking walking casts.

When she finally reached the study door, Emma threw it open. Immediately it became clear what the muffled sounds at been. Regina was sitting on her study couch crying into one of the pillows. Emma was beside her, kneeling on the ground beside her, not caring of her twinging muscles and bones.

"Hey, hey, hey, Regina, what's wrong?"

Regina removed the pillow revealing a red face and eyes with tear tracks covering her face. There was even snot beginning to drip from the woman's nose. Emma's heart broke. She reached out and brushed the tears from Regina's face tenderly.

"Regina, why are you crying?" Emma leaned forward and kissed the corners of Regina's eyes.

Regina took a shaky breath. "You almost died, Emma."

"That may be a slight exaggeration. I'd still be in the hospital if that was true."

"But you could've been hurt worse! What if it happens again, Emma? You said it would happen again."

"But I wasn't hurt worse, Regina. I'm not in the best shape right now, sure, but I'm still here."

"But what about the future? I…I can't, Emma, I can't."

"You can't what?"

"I can't lose you." Regina turned and buried her head in the pillow again.

"You're not gonna lose me."

"But if you keep going after people like that I will."

Emma wanted to pull the other woman into her arms so badly, but knew that wasn't probably a good idea. Neither was trying to curl up with her on the couch. God damn it she hated this injury thing.

"I can't say I'm not going to go after criminals. That's the job I was elected for, that's the job I had before this. It's what I'm good at. I'm good at protecting people. Because if I take those guys off the streets then they can't hurt the people I love, people like you and Henry." She reached out and took one of Regina's hands that was clutching the pillow. "But I can say that I'll be more careful when I do. I love you and I want to be around for a long, long time. Next time I'll call for back up and actually wait for it to get there, I promise. I don't want you to worry Regina. Ninety percent of the time the most dangerous thing I do is get cats out of trees. This wasn't exactly a fluke, but it isn't exactly going to happen every few months. If you want there are probably some things we, or probably you can do since you're the mayor and all, to discourage these people from coming back. I can look into it. I'm sure our little town isn't the only one that's had this problem.

"Just, the most important thing here is, I love you, I'm not going anywhere if I can help it, and I'll be more careful. Because you're smiling face is the most important thing to me, and I'm not exactly seeing a smile right now."

Regina removed the pillow from her face again and looked at Emma for a long moment. "Instead of watching TV I want you to start researching these deterrents, Sheriff. When you have a viable solution then you may resume your brain melting. And I want you to hire a new deputy. Two of you won't cut it if this is going to happen more than once. And if you, or any of your employees don't wait for back up when the situation is over their heads, I will find some creative way to punish you."

Emma wiped Regina's fresh tears away. "I think I can agree to that."

"Good."

Emma leaned forward and kissed Regina gently. Regina pulled back from the kiss after a few seconds.

"And Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you, too."

Emma just smiled and leaned into to kiss her again.


End file.
